Radioactivity
gets made inside nuclear power plants as the fuel - uranium metal - splits
into other elements which give off radiation. So far, no one has worked
out a way to safely dispose of the waste this makes, so at present it's
all stored - huge quantities of it. And if the power plant goes wrong,
terrible
disasters can happen.

Facts
about RadiationRadiation
is scary because no one can tell itís there without special detectors.
Animals like you and me have senses which means we can see, hear,
touch, taste, smell ó but we canít tell if something is radioactive.
Waste products from making nuclear bombs and from nuclear power
plants are very radioactive indeed. If you happened to fall into
a nuclear reactor, you would die almost instantly. Lower radiation
levels can also make people die - over a matter of days or, by causing
illnesses like cancer, over a period of years. Radiation comes from
new elements (uranium fuel is an element;
so is carbon and so is oxygen) which get made during nuclear reactions.
The radioactive isotopes
of these elements, often only exist for a few weeks or years. But
some last for hundreds of thousands of years which is why no one
really knows what to do about getting rid of them. Radioactive isotopes
have what's called a
half-life. Radioactive isotopes with short half-lives quickly
disappear by spewing out streams of tiny particles which travel
very fast. This is radiation and itís
dangerous to life like you and me. So if you stand near something
radioactive, youíre being hit by trillions of tiny Ďbulletsí all
the time. You canít feel it but these Ďbulletsí damage the cells
in your body. A lot of damage breaks them and you die. Less damage
messes up their genes and causes cancer and kills you slowly. Like
I said, nasty stuff.

If nuclear power is so dangerous, how might
it help?

Nuclear power stations have been making electric
power for over 50 years. People understand their dangers very well so
the risk of using them is less than it used to be. A scientist or nuclear
engineer would say 'the technology has matured'. Nuclear stations have
several advantages over other ways to make electricity:

they can run at full power for many months at a time

they can make enormous amounts of power from a small amount of fuel.
Just one
station can provide enough power for a city

they do
not themselves produce any greenhouse gases and so don't cause global
warming. Nor do they pollute the atmosphere with smoke containing sulphur
and nitrogen oxides unlike coal plants, so they don't cause acid rain

It's
certain that many more nuclear plants will
get built because people are used to having
electric power at the flip of a switch all
the time. 'Green' (environmentalist) people
have always
been against nuclear power and most
still are. They want a world powered by
renewables like wind and solar energy. The
trouble with that is that renewables aren't
always producing power and people today
are totally used to having energy available
whenever they want it. Relying on renewables
would mean you couldn't be sure the lights
would go on when you flipped that switch!
So some Greens now accept that nuclear
power should be part of the mix of power
sources - including renewables - which
could produce a steady, reliable 'background'
of power at all times. There are some who
think that if people are going to go for
nuclear power in a big way, it could all
be made much safer if the reactors could
be built underground. Find
out why. And now there are special
reactors
which can not only generate huge
amounts of power but use up the dangerous
radioactive stuff which is produced in
older reactor types, so they need hardly
any fuel.

Getting
rid of waste

So
why not go nuclear? Why not build loads
of new reactors and make green electricity?
There are still problems with
nuclear which can't be easily fixed. The
biggest of these is the radioactive
waste they make while they're operating.
There are ways to deal with this, some short
term and some longer
term though there is no simple solution
to the big issue: nuclear waste is nasty
stuff. But there are
good reasons to hope that the waste problem
can be solved using IFRs.

Nuclear future?

The
biggest fusion reactor of all: our sun

There are better and safer methods of using
nuclear energy. Some are just around the corner and some further away.
One of the brightest stars
is nuclear fusion. This is making energy in the same way that the sun
makes it. Instead of splitting atoms to make heat, hydrogen atoms can
fuse into helium atoms at unbelievably high temperatures such as you find
in the middle of the sun: that's around 50 million degrees. This fusion
of atoms gives off massive amounts of heat and light which is why our
sun is hot and bright. Scientists believe that they can mimic the sun
in fusion reactors here on Earth but using the technology as an energy
source is still many years in the future.

Let's now look at the
energy alternatives, called renewables, so you can decide for yourself
which energy source is best.